Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
My running shoes pound the paved trail as I try to time my breaths to the metered beats of my fast footfalls.
Aleksander and I pass a few people who are also out enjoying a morning run through the park.
I’ve brought Fénix out here a few times in his carriage stroller to walk around the loop that circles the pond, or with Constantine to enjoy a picnic under the shade of the old maple that grows near the south bank where the ducks like to gather.
Stealing a side glance at Aleksander, I mentally growl at the fact that he looks fresh as a daisy, as Alana used to say, whereas I’m a panting, sweaty mess after only running three miles.
Three long miles filled with awkward-as-hell silence that I’m done with.
I was hoping he would say something first, but it’s clear that he’s not going to.
“I think we should talk about—”
“No, we shouldn’t,” he replies, increasing his speed.
Damn his long, muscled legs.
Tapping into my rapidly depleting energy reserves, my calves burn as I sprint after him. I shouldn’t have eaten all those donuts. The quick sugar infusion left me at mile one.
“Clearly, we should,” I reply through labored breaths when I catch up to him. “I’m sorry that—”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I know it must have been embarrassing—”
“It wasn’t.”
“—to walk in and see me and—”
“You walked in on me in the shower. Call it even.”
Not even close. And why did he have to bring that up? Not like I’d ever forget because…stop picturing his dick.
“I don’t want you to feel—”
“I don’t.”
“And I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable—”
“You didn’t.”
“There’s no excuse for my behavior, and—”
“You don’t need to keep apologizing.”
For fuck’s sake.
Irritated with the constant cutoffs, I leap onto his back, and he stumbles forward. “Stop interrupting me! We’re going to talk about what happened whether you want to or not.”
His large hands curve under my ass to support my weight, and he carries me piggyback down the trail. “I’d rather not.”
Hoping to sweep it under a figurative rug, I reply, “We shouldn’t make it a bigger deal than it was.”
His hands suddenly let go, and I drop to my feet. The warmth he’d been radiating is quickly replaced with the frosty chill of the air.
My breath catches when he pivots around and advances forward, backing me up until my spine hits the trunk of a tree. The wild emotion behind his pewter eyes sends my heart galloping to dangerous levels.
“It is a big deal,” he says, taking a step closer, so close I can smell the soap he used, and the natural masculine musk of him. Can a man smell delicious?
And dear god, all I want to do is lick his inked skin from head to toe just to see what he tastes like.
“People see each other naked all the time. At the gym. Nude beaches. Strip clubs.” I know I’m grasping at the absurd to make my point.
“You aren’t just some guy I stand next to in the shower room at the gym or a random girl giving me a lap dance whose face I’d forget the second the music stopped. You’re…” He slides a fingertip down my cheek, his touch seductive as it traces the contour of my bottom lip.
“I’m what?” My voice comes out breathless, and it has nothing to do with the triple miles I just ran.
“Not mine.”
My heart betrays me with its violent thrum when it whispers, But what if I want to be?
As soon as the thought forms, I’m inundated with a suffocating mix of shame for even thinking it and…temptation for something I know I can’t have.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Wanting another man, even if I never act on it, isn’t much different than physically cheating. The truth of it sickens me, making me feel unfaithful.
But longing has a way of clawing past morality, and no matter how hard I try to fight my growing feelings for a man I shouldn’t want, I sink deeper into a blackhole of forbidden yearning I can’t seem to will away.
It’s wrong—I fucking know it’s wrong—but Aleksander ignites something uncontrollable inside me, its burn growing hotter every time I try to extinguish it.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe we both do. My conscience screams at me to keep my distance. To move. To say stop. But my body betrays me, drawn to his heat like a moth to a flame. The air between us pulses with a dangerous current, its pull a force I can’t fight.
Aleksander’s gaze drops to my mouth, and the hunger behind his light-gray eyes makes my heart rate go haywire.
“I’ve got to go.” Sliding around him, I take off like the hounds of hell are nipping at my heels, my guilt giving my feet wings as I run as fast as I can.
“Syn, wait!”
One second I’m on the trail, the next, I’m dashing up the front steps of the house, my brain on autopilot because I don’t recall how I got here so quickly.
Kicking off my tennis shoes, I stop in the entryway to the living room and take in the sweet scene of Constantine playing with Fénix on a blanket laid out on the floor, soft, plushie toys scattered around them.
“Mommy’s back.” Constantine’s raspy voice a gentle coo as he talks to our son. Fénix kicks his little legs in response and tries to grab the rattle toy Constantine is holding. “How was your run?”
“Fine.”
He’s too perceptive for his own good. He has this unnerving ability to read people, something as inconsequential as a small inflection in your tone or from things like subtle eye movements or posture. So, I’m not surprised that he somehow senses I’m upset.
Flipping Fénix over onto his stomach for some tummy time, Constantine rises from his cross-legged position. “What’s wrong?”
I try to brush off my melancholy and smile. “Nothing.”
With care, he cups my cold face and tips it, and I get lost in the depths of his dark eyes. “If it’s nothing, then why have you been crying?”
I didn’t know I had been.
I wrinkle my red nose. “It’s cold outside. And I’m sweaty.” Not a lie after running the two miles it took to get home in eleven minutes. Miles I know I’m going to feel later today. My calves are already sore with lactic acid buildup.
“Você é meu corac?o. I am always your safe place.” His thumbs are brushstrokes over my cheeks…and my undoing.
“Why weren’t you upset about what happened this morning?”
“Kind of hard to be upset when your woman is on her knees, sending you to heaven as she deep-throats your dick.”
Laughter unintentionally splutters out. “Did you and Hendrix have a Freaky Friday and switch bodies?”
Growing serious, he palms the back of my neck. “Does it bother you that I wasn’t upset?”
Yes. No. I’m not sure.
My guys are possessive. Touch her and die.
And that’s putting it mildly. Hendrix goes all cave man when other men look at me with my clothes on.
And Aleksander used to be their…I don’t know.
Lifelong nemesis? Enemy? I know a lot has changed over the past year in our relationships and our family, both of which Aleksander is now an essential part of.
“It’s just…I’m ashamed of how I reacted. I shouldn’t have come back into the kitchen—”
I huff when he interrupts me. I wish everyone would stop doing that.
“First, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You’re fucking gorgeous. Every inch of you. The blame lies squarely on us for watching without permission.”
“It’s not that.”
Because that ship sailed the night on the back deck when Hendrix watched Tristan go down on me while Constantine kissed the ever-living hell out of me.
That night was the beginning of us. And it was a relationship Syn went into with her whole heart.
A relationship that Aleksander wasn’t a part of.
Just because Aoife’s memories returned doesn’t erase the fact that Syn fell in love with Constantine, Tristan, and Hendrix first. And…
I’m back to talking about myself in third person again. Great.
When Fénix starts fussing, I press a kiss to Constantine’s mouth and pick up my son. This is my heaven, this little bundle of warmth cuddled in my arms. Tucking him on my shoulder, I lightly pat his back and bounce him in a slow dance. “I guess I’m just struggling with how to process everything.”
Constantine’s onyx gaze bores into me, quietly searching for something, before he softly says, “Because he’s in love with you…or because you’re in love with him?”
My heart doesn’t plummet to my feet. It stops.
Literally stops beating.
“I…” Not able to control them, a flood of tears unleashes and streams down my face. “I love you.”
His expression softens. “Sweetheart, I know you love me. I know you love T and Hen just as much. Never once have we doubted that. And we love you, Syn. So fucking much. You are it for us. Always have been since we were kids. The four of us are forever. But Aleksander is a part of that past we share. We may have been young, but even back then, we saw the connection you had with him. And it scared us.”
Constantine is a man of few words. It’s rare when he opens up like this with a vulnerability he only lets me see. It’s a gift I cherish and don’t take lightly.
“Why?” I ask, wanting to allay his fears.
“Because what if you loved him more?”
“Never,” I reply vehemently.
It’s hard to explain how I love him, Tristan, and Hendrix equally. Alana still doesn’t understand how we’re able to make our relationship work. We love each other like fire loves oxygen. Without the latter, the former cannot exist.
Constantine folds me and Fénix in his arms. “Your heart is so fucking huge, sweet girl, there’s enough room in it for all of us.”
Did he just…?
“I don’t understand.”
A gust of wind sweeps across the floor when the front door opens and closes, Tristan and Hendrix’s rushed, mumbled conversation filtering into the living room.
“Why the fuck aren’t you answering your phones?” Tristan snaps.
Fénix’s little face scrunches at Tristan’s harsh tone.
“What’s going on?” I ask when he takes Fénix from me to settle him down.
“They’re moving on Viktor.”
“Now?” Constantine says.
My stupefaction is apparent. We were still in the planning phase. Viktor Androv isn’t an easy man to get access to. He surrounds himself with protection 24/7. Our plan had to be solid, every contingency considered, before we went after him.
“How do you know?”
“Pyotr.”
Unzipping the thigh pocket of my running leggings, I check my phone. Ten missed calls. Four from Tristan, two from Hendrix, and four from Pyotr. I never heard it ring or felt it vibrate.
“Have you talked to Aleksander?” I literally just left him on the trail about a half an hour ago.
Tristan’s concern comes through when he replies, “He won’t answer his fucking phone either. I thought he’d be with you. He isn’t here?”
Me: Where are you?
No dots bounce to show that he’s replying.
Pacing to the window, I try Pyotr.
Me: Is Aleksander with you?
I wait sixty agonizingly long seconds to get a response.
Pyotr: Just boarded the helicopter.
Aleksander houses an Airbus H160 and a Gulfstream G600 at the private airfield, two hangars down from ours.
Me: Wait for us.
Pyotr: I’m not supposed to tell you anything. He wants to handle this himself. I tried to convince him otherwise. Sorry, Syn. I promise not to leave his side. He won’t be alone in this. You have my word.
Fuck that. I call Pyotr’s number, but he doesn’t pick up. I try to call Aleksander. Same result. Goddammit, Aleksander!
The guys start arguing. Fénix starts crying. And images of strangling Aleksander with my bare hands run rampant through my chaotic thoughts.
How can the world go to shit in thirty minutes?
I call the one person I know who will be able to get me the information I need.
“Hey, cuz. What’s up?” Andie answers, the sound of Sarah’s laughter in the background.
“I need your help.”